Move the Earth
by leavingslowly
Summary: Sam and Dean travel to New Orleans, where Sam's possession has unexpected consequences.  Spoilers for BUABS.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This story was written for SFTCOL(AR)S Secret Santa Round Two fic exchange. Specifically, it's for you, Bayre . . . I hope you enjoy it!

* * *

Two weeks after the possession, Sam was in the shower when memories started to come back in short, bursting flashes: a bottle of malt liquor smashing against a gas station counter, Jo hitting and scratching his shoulder in a bar, Dean chasing him through a warehouse.

Another week passed, and he was in a convenience store when he remembered shooting Dean, and heard the splash when he fell into the water. There were vague memories of people shouting at him, of being kicked out of a restaurant. Sam couldn't connect all of the details, but that didn't really matter. What mattered was that he knew without a doubt that he had been evil. He'd been what he was most afraid of, and weren't people supposed to face their fears?

For a stretch of time Sam found himself thinking constantly about Meg—not the demon, but the girl, the one who died on Bobby's floor. He wondered about who she had really been, the people she had left behind, what she had done. Her words echoed in his head.

_I've been awake . . . for some of it. I couldn't move my own body. The things I did—it's a nightmare._

He knew the feeling she described. It had become a familiar thing coiled in the pit of his stomach as a sharp ache, a belief that he was a ticking time bomb, that he would become Dean's nightmare one day no matter how hard they tried to stop it.

It was a thought that swam around in his head, pausing in every corner of his brain at least once an hour every day. Sam knew that Dean guessed what he was thinking, even though neither of them brought it up.

Sam kept almost everything to himself now, and for the first time in their lives Dean allowed him to retreat. Maybe once upon a time, when he wasn't at risk of losing soul, they would've had a chick-flick moment, but those days were long gone. His brother was going to have to kill him one day, and he wouldn't bring up anything that reminded either of them of it.

They swept it all under the rug whenever possible and started driving across the country, their normal rhythm unaltered. It seemed like they found something supernatural in almost every town they stopped at. They took care of things as and kept going south, where police and hunters were less likely to find them simply due to the lack of urban areas.

Sam spent most of his time staring out the window, letting Dean guide them while he wondered where they would end up and what would happen to him. If he sometimes caught his brother staring at him out of the corner of his eye, he ignored it. It was just easier that way.

xXxXXxXx

Two months after the possession, they found themselves in a rundown motel in the outskirts of New Orleans researching weird occurrences in a sorority house near the Louisiana State University campus. It was as far south as they could go without driving right into the Gulf of Mexico, and because of the devastation from the hurricane they could easily blend into the disorder. It was the perfect hiding spot, and it seemed like a fairly straightforward case.

The sorority house seemed to be haunted, with incidents that ranged from accidentally getting locked out of rooms and electrical surges to girls mysteriously getting injured. At first they had suspected a pre-existing spirit, but further investigation seemed to indicate that the incidents started happening about the time a college student named Melinda Deveraux disappeared from the house.

Sam spent the better part of a day trying to find out where Melinda was from, if she had family, where she lived . . . not for the first time, Sam was annoyed that he couldn't just be paid like a regular private investigator. Lord knew they did enough of the work, and they did it better than most PIs, too. All in all, he was tired, irritated, and had a stomachache that he didn't even try to attribute to anything specific. Instead, he pretended he wasn't annoyed and chewed on Tums while trying to ignore Dean's noisy attempts to do research using the laptop.

"Seriously, eat any more of those and you'll need your stomach pumped, Sammy." Dean informed him, reaching across the table to try to snag the antacid bottle. Sam yanked it out of his reach, glaring, and Dean scowled. "C'mon, dude. If your stomach is really that upset maybe you should see a doctor."

"I'm fine." Sam responded. He glanced at the pile of clothing on top of his duffel bag that didn't belong to him, then back at his brother. "It's just the stress of living with you, jerk."

Dean scoffed and turned back to the computer, vigorously poking the page down key. "I am a joy twenty-four seven. You've stressed yourself out, bitch."

Sam glared but remained silent, shifting his gaze back to his book. Several minutes of uninterrupted peace passed before Dean shifted in his seat, clicked hard on the spacebar several times, and then gave a disgruntled sigh.

"Man, I can't find anything. Not even a missing persons report. This is totally our kind of weird."

Sam looked up from his book and shook his head. "Considering that she doesn't have family it's not surprising that no one has filed a report."

"Yeah, you'd think she'd have a friend or two looking for her, though, especially with all those people in the sorority house." Dean responded.

"So either someone doesn't want her found, or she doesn't want to _be _found. Maybe this is something for the police to check into?" Sam questioned, earning a hard look from his brother.

"Nah, the occurrences at the sorority house are too weird." Dean said, leaning back in his chair and running a hand through his short hair. " I'm telling you, Sammy, it's connected to this girl. Maybe she's like the Marie Laveau of sorority chicks, you know, practicing voodoo on them all to piss 'em off."

Sam raised his eyebrows at his brother's analogy, and Dean grinned and barreled on. "You know, the Queen of Voodoo. Lived in New Orleans in the 1800s and combined voodoo and Catholicism to create a new sort of voodoo."

"Yeah," Sam said, rolling his eyes and reaching for the antacids again. "I know."

"Hey, don't act so surprised. I know things." Dean informed him, smirking and shutting the lid of the laptop. Sam rolled his eyes for a second time, not responding, and Dean's grin grew. "I say we go to Melinda's place, check it out, and then talk with some of her housemates."

xXxXXxXx

"What the hell is this?" Dean asked, turning towards his brother and holding up something with his knife that resembled a wishbone. "Looks like something from a voodoo spell to me!"

Sam frowned and took a step closer, examining the shriveled item Dean was holding towards him. "It's a toad leg."

"Dude, that's nasty!" Dean exclaimed. He grunted in disgust and tossed the offending item onto the floor. "Seriously, how can anyone do any activity involving a frog leg? This girl is cracked."

"It's a toad leg, Dean, not a frog leg." Sam corrected, leaning down and picking up the leg with his own knife and examining it.

"Toad, frog, whatever," Dean grouched. "It's all disgusting. They cause warts, man."

"Actually, it's dried up so it's not like –"

"Sam!"

Sam grabbed a Kleenex off the dresser beside him, rolling the leg up and putting it in his pocket. He ignored his brother's horrified look. "You know, I think you may be right. The powder, the jars, this toad leg. They're all ingredients for gris-gris. Dean, she was using some powerful voodoo magic."

"Powerful enough to kill her?"

Sam shook his head. "Maybe. But normal gris-gris spells are mainly used to attract good things to you – love, money, fame – not to harass or harm others. There's something we're missing."

"Maybe it didn't work?" Dean suggested.

"Or she cast another spell? Gris-gris can be used for evil as well as good if you change a few ingredients. Maybe she didn't know what she was doing?" Sam said, glancing around the room for any more clues.

He zeroed in on the bottle of liquid in the corner of the bookshelf across the room and walked over to grab it. The liquid was pale green with what appeared to be, for lack of a better description, pulp floating at the top.

"What's that?" Dean asked.

"No clue." Sam responded, wiggling the bottle a little and watching the pulpy pieces shift back and forth. "The internal organs of the toad, maybe?"

Dean made a face and took a step back. "What, was she catching frogs in the back yard and boiling them for dinner?"

"Toads." Sam corrected again. He frowned and wiggled the bottle once more. "I can't see her taking apart a toad in her room. So either she knew how to produce these things, or she purchased it from somewhere."

Dean paused at that and raised his eyebrow. "A college student looking for a quick fix to something? I'm guessing she purchased them."

"Makes sense." Sam agreed.

Dean smiled and got out his car keys, jiggling them. "Maybe if we find out what spell she cast we can figure out what she wanted. How about you go find a voodoo shop, and I'll talk to her friends."

xXxXXxXx

The scent of herbs and candle wax was so overwhelming when he stepped into the store that Sam had to hold his breath for a few seconds and then slowly start to inhale and exhale through his mouth again. After a few moments of making sure his sinuses wouldn't explode, he looked around.

Dean had dropped him off and gone back to Melinda's apartment to search for more clues, and he appeared to be alone in the store, despite the crude wooden _open _sign that hung on the door behind him. Sam quickly took the opportunity to investigate, examining the various containers on the shelves that lined the small room. He recognized a few basic herbs, and was slightly disgusted to identify several different animal parts in various jars along the back wall.

It took him several seconds, but his gaze eventually landed on a jar of toad legs sitting in the back corner of the shelf. He was getting ready to grab the jar to examine a leg to compare it against the one they found at Melinda's when a small elderly man with dark skin and curly grey hair suddenly materialized behind the counter.

"What may I help you find?"

Sam jerked and spun around, startled by the man's sudden appearance. Quickly covering his surprise, Sam flashed his"trust-me" smile and made his way over to the counter.

"Hi, uh, I was wondering if you've seen this girl." he said, sliding the picture he'd gotten off the internet across the wooden countertop. "She's a friend of a friend, and we haven't heard from her in awhile."

The old man studied the picture, not looking up as he asked, "And you have not called the police? They would be a much better source than I for information."

Sam shuffled a little and tried to look sheepish. "Well, we did, but you know how it is, they take forever. And, uh, I know that she had been doing some _things_ that the police maybe wouldn't understand."

The man made a noise of acknowledgment and nodded, sliding the picture back across the table. For a second Sam thought he wasn't going to respond, but finally he looked up and pointed towards the table in the back, where several black pouches were lined up.

"She came in several weeks ago. I recall because she wanted to know how to use gris-gris. Most people who come in my shop already know such things. She did not understand what she was doing."

"Could she have done something wrong?" Sam asked, eyeing the pouches. He guessed one of the items inside them were toad legs.

The old man shook his head. "No. The pouch I gave her, she was missing an ingredient. The spell would not have worked properly."

"So you sold her a bad product?"

The man glared, offended. "No. Most think voodoo is a game, and play it as such. Many shops sell incomplete spells, it is not unusual. Regardless, your friend was not a good person, and it would not have been in good hands."

Sam raised his eyebrows. "How could you tell she wasn't a good person?"

"I touched her."

"You touched her?" Sam repeated, confused.

"No one leaves my store who I do not know. I touch you, I know you." The man explained, raising a hand. "I will show you."

"Oh, uh, no I'm not –" Sam froze, stopping in mid-sentence as the old man reached across the counter and grasped his right hand before he could stop him.

They stood there for a second as Sam recovered from his shock, and he yanked his hand back, but not before the old man's eyes had widened and he gasped. He dropped Sam's hand as if he'd been burned and took a step back, putting extra space between himself and Sam.

"You!"

Sam shook his head, forcing a smile. "I don't know what –"

"You have touched evil. It's been _inside_ you."

The smile dropped from his face, every muscle in his body locking up as Sam felt the weight of the words. If he could've moved he would have headed for the door, but his legs seemed to have stopped working. For a second he could feel blood on his hands, could see Dean falling over the edge of the pier.

"Here, leave this place." The old man demanded, grabbing a small wooden carving from beneath the counter and shoving it into his right hand. "Take this and go."

"What? No, I'm not evil. I'm just trying to find answers." Sam said, jerking his hand away from the small block of wood the old man had pressed against it. He took a step back and immediately turned for the door.

"You are not, but you will be. You've been the darkness. It still lingers inside you, waiting. You will be the darkness again one day soon." the man called out as Sam tried to leave.

Something inside him twisted, the knot that had been perpetually in his stomach coiling so tightly Sam thought he might throw up. "No, I won't."

"You cannot help it. It is your destiny, to save the one you love."

At that, Sam smiled grimly and shook his head. The old man was caught in his lies. "The woman I love is already dead." he informed him, smirking.

The old man didn't seem at all perturbed by the revelation, and Sam felt a chill lodge itself in his chest at his next words.

"That may be, but I did not say the one you love is a woman."

Sam stopped moving and turned slightly to stare at the man. Maybe it was his imagination, but his eyes seemed to be glinting, small slivers of grey flickering in them as he continued.

"You assume romantic love, but . . . don't you love your brother?"

xXxXXxXx

"So get this," Dean called out, barreling into the motel room and slamming the door shut behind him, startling Sam out of a restless sleep. "Melinda was stalking this frat boy named Daniel Elliot – I hate people with two first names, by the way."

"Uh, what?" Sam asked, slightly disoriented from his abrupt jolt into the waking world. He didn't remember falling asleep, but obviously he'd dozed off at some point while he'd been research potential backlashes from gris-gris spells—the laptop was still humming beside him, the low battery light flashing.

Dean frowned at his brother's grogginess and brought his voice down a notch in case Sam had a headache; Sam always got quiet when his head hurt. "You know, dude?"

"Yeah," Sam responded shortly, sitting up and rubbing his eyes, grimacing at the ache that had settled in his stomach. Damn, he needed more Tums. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just fell asleep."

"Grandma," Dean snarked.

Sam scowled and swung his legs over the side of the bed. "Bite me. Who's this Daniel Elliot guy?"

"C'mon, Sammy, keep up. A guy from one of the fraternities; apparently this guy's frat and Melinda's sorority throw joint parties a lot. Melinda was obsessed with him. Her roommates say she was stalking him. She locked herself in her room for hours the night she disappeared, and then left and went over to Daniel's fraternity. No one has seen her since."

"She must have been using the gris-gris for a love spell." Sam guessed. "So why didn't her housemates call the police when she didn't reappear?"

Dean shook his head and dropped onto his own bed. "They said that she called two weeks ago to say she was taking a break from school and no one has heard from her since. I guess they didn't like her, so no one has checked up on her since then. But the day she disappeared is definitely the day weird things started happening in the house. Flickering lights, doors opening and closing, scratching noises . . ."

"So she's probably dead and is haunting the place." Sam surmised, sighing at the realization. God, he was tired of dealing with death and dying and everything related.

"Probably," Dean agreed. "And someone in the house probably had something to do with it."

Sam frowned, remembering the old man's words about Melinda. "It's a good assumption. I found the voodoo shop she used. It was about half a mile from the house. There was this freaky old guy who said he sensed she was bad and didn't give her the right ingredients. He said she would've done damage."

Dean's eyes widened, and he snorted in disbelief. "Wait, he said she was bad?"

"Yeah. He said he touched her and could sense she was evil."

"He _touched _her and knew she was evil? What the hell, was he groping her?" Dean asked, eyebrows raised skeptically. "Sounds nutso to me."

Sam felt a wave of agitation at the fact that his brother was repeating everything he was saying. "Dude, it's not like it's the weirdest thing you've ever heard. Vampires ring a bell?"

Dean pursed his lips thoughtfully and shrugged. "Good point. So the voodoo shop owner is some kind of psycho, and the crazy is a totally separate thing."

"He wasn't crazy." Sam argued, his voice rising slightly.

"Whoa there. Why are your panties in a twist all of a sudden?"

"It's not all of a sudden, Dean!" Sam burst out. "Since when is the idea of someone sensing evil is crazy? That's nuts! Sometimes people can just sense it – it's that obvious!"

Dean jerked slightly at the vehemence in his brother's voice. "Hey, calm down. What is _up_ with you?"

Dean looked confused for a moment, and then his eyes slowly widened as something clicked in his head. Sam knew what was coming next and inwardly cursed his brother's uncanny ability to figure him out almost instantly if he wanted to.

Forcing a calm façade, Sam let out an aggrieved sigh and moved to stand up. He only got halfway off the bed before he felt Dean's hand come down on his shoulder.

"What happened, Sammy? What did he say to you?"

Sam looked away, swallowing hard against the nausea rising in his throat. The idea of being evil, of being _sensed _as evil, was making his stomach turn.

"Sam."

"He touched me, too." Sam admitted quietly. He kept his head down, but he could sense the moment that Dean understood what he was saying. His brother stiffened, and pulled away just slightly, but enough to make Sam cringe despite the words of comfort he doled out.

"Hey, man, possessions leave markers. We know that. If he had any psychic ability he would've figured it out. Doesn't mean anything."

Sam nodded and stood up. "Yeah, you're right. Doesn't matter. It's not like I'm evil now."

"Sammy—"

"I'm gonna take a shower, then we've gotta figure out what happened to Melinda."

xXxXXxXx

The shower did nothing to calm Sam's nerves and additional research turned up nothing on Melinda's whereabouts. By the time they finished their search it was too late to go back and question more of her friends, so they opted to stay and scan police reports for police reports of dead bodies in the region. Secretly, Sam was glad for the break. He felt nauseous from the greasy pizza they'd eaten for dinner, and he was exhausted and totally freaked out by the voodoo shop owner. All he wanted was to sleep, preferably without any dreams.

Sam ignored his brother's glances and finally allowed himself to curl up on his bed at two a.m. He quickly drifted off to the sounds of Dean flipping through channels on the t.v., waking once when Dean turned the television off and went to bed himself, and then falling back asleep.

He wasn't sure what woke him the second time, but he knew he was uncomfortable. He was cold and felt sick and disjointed, like he was under water. Sam opened his eyes to see faint moonlight streaming through the cheap plastic blinds, and glanced over at his Dean, who was sound asleep. God, he felt bad. Groaning, he rolled over onto his back, and then instantly regretted the motion. His stomach rolled ominously, and he felt a cold sweat break out across his body. _Crap_.

"Sam?" Dean asked groggily, shifting slightly under his blankets.

Sam wanted to respond, he really did, but he was pretty sure that if he opened his mouth he'd throw up. He opted for ignoring his brother for the moment and jumped out of bed, making a beeline for the bathroom. He managed to slam the door closed behind him as he entered and heard Dean's exclamation of protest right before he leaned over the toilet and vomited.

His stomach and throat protested the abuse, but there wasn't anything he could do to stop it. Sam curled up against the stained toilet, waiting for the sickness to subside. It didn't last very long, but what it lacked in length it made up for in intensity, and after several minutes of retching Sam found himself dizzy and totally breathless.

He slumped over on his hands and knees, trying to catch his breath, and saw Dean's bare toes wiggling anxiously outside the door, visible in the two-inch gap between the cheap fake wooden door of the bathroom and the ancient linoleum floor.

"Dude, you okay in there?" Dean asked, his toes curling in anticipation of an answer.

Sam wasn't sure if he could actually respond, so he settled for a loud grunt and uncurled to let himself collapse back against the bathtub. He watched Dean's toes curl and wiggle again beneath the door as he paced back and forth.

"Sammy?"

"M'okay," Sam croaked out, coughing slightly and then groaning at the stimulation of his gag reflex.

"Yeah, you sound like it." Dean shot back. "C'mon, Sammy, let me in. I want to make sure you're still breathing."

Dean said it like a joke, but Sam knew it really wasn't, so he mustered up his strength, crawled to his knees and moved to turn the doorknob. He missed it the first time and brought a shaking hand up to his face to wipe at his eyes, preparing to try again, and that was when he saw it: in the middle of his right palm was a series of faded red lines in the shape of a pentagram.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

Sam lay sprawled across his bed on his stomach, wanting nothing more than to be unconscious, but Dean had ahold of his right hand and was poking and prodding at his palm, making little "huh" noises. It was annoying and was keeping him connected to the waking world, but after spending two hours puking his guts out, Sam was totally exhausted and didn't have the energy to fight it.

He submitted lethargically to the exam, allowing Dean to examine his palm and wrist, right up until he felt the sting of Dean pinching the skin between his thumb and index finger. He let out a muffled yelp and jerked his hand back, glaring weakly at his brother. "Dude, ow!" he whined

"Sorry, Sammy." Dean apologized, dropping Sam's hand back down on top of the covers. "But it looks like it's fading—you feeling any better?"

Sam groaned and buried his head in his pillow. "No."

Dean frowned and reached out to feel the back of his brother's neck; he was dismayed to find that Sam's skin felt hot beneath his palm. Great, now they could add a fever to the list of things going wrong.

He didn't even know how to begin figuring out what was happening to Sam, so Dean went with the obvious: "I think that freaky dude you met in the voodoo shop cast a spell on you."

Sam grunted and pulled his right arm under his body. "How?"

Dean raised his eyebrows at his brother's response. Usually Sam had a theory for everything and a monologue to go along with it; he was the one who often made the difficult connections in cases, and the fact that he wasn't even trying to help himself was a bad sign.

"I don't know, you tell me. Did he say anything, do a chant, a dance, something?" Dean asked. He stepped away from the bed and crossed his arms over his chest.

"He was like a hundred, Dean, he couldn't dance." Sam mumbled, closing his eyes. "No chanting, either. Just told me Melinda was bad."

Dean pondered for a moment, then asked, "Did you leave anything there he could've cast a spell with?"

"No."

"Did he say anything weird?"

Sam sighed heavily. "Other than the fact that he sensed I'd been evil? No."

"C'mon, Sammy. Give me something." Dean begged. Sam blinked blearily up at him, silent, and Dean took a deep breath, running his fingers through his hair. "Okay, we've just got to—"

"Wait," Sam said, struggling suddenly to sit up. He got about halfway there and then grimaced and flopped back down.

"Dude, take it easy." Dean admonished.

"He had some kind of charm. A wooden charm. He pressed it into my hand." Sam recalled. He looked up at Dean, eyes wide. "Do you think it's causing this?"

"I don't know, man, but it's a start." Dean replied. He grabbed his coat off his bed, put it on, and then stuffed his wallet into his back pocket. "Okay, you stay here and rest and I'm going to go talk to that old bastard."

At that, Sam perked up enough to lift his head and fix his brother with a serious look. "What about Melinda? We have to find out what happened to her."

"Yeah, we will, but after we get you better." Dean replied. Sick though he was, Sam managed to put on a pretty good bitchface, and Dean narrowed his eyes for the fight that was about to come.

"Dean—"

"No, Sam. No arguing." Dean ordered.

Sam glared and twitched at the ultimatum, mumbling his opinion under his breath, but remained in bed. He watched Dean grab a wastebasket and a bottle of water; his brother dropped the cracked plastic container on the floor next to his bed and then plopped the water bottle down on the nightstand.

"Drink as much of the water as you can, and don't puke on the carpet. I'll be back soon." Dean flashed a tight grin, grabbed his keys, and then was gone. 

xxXXxxXXxx

The voodoo shop was at the end of a narrow alley, almost hidden unless a person walked all the way to the end of the narrow street. Dean didn't even bother to see if the door was unlocked; instead, he lifted up his leg and kicked the door open. There was a satisfying crash as it flew in, and then the sound of glass shattering.

Dean stepped into the shop with a glare, ready to do some damage, and immediately saw a little girl staring at him with wide, frightened eyes from behind the counter.

"Uh, hey there." he said, forcing what he hoped was a cheery smile and raising his hand in a little wave. The girl let out a shriek and ran through a beaded curtain on her left, the sound of the little wooden beads knocking together drifting in her wake.

"Well, fuck." Dean muttered. He took a second to feel guilty, and then started looking around the room.

The whole place smelled gross, he quickly decided, and wrinkled his nose in disgust as he poked at an unidentifiable object on a shelf near the counter. He was still squinting at the small brown mass when the beads jangled, and he spun to see an elderly man with frizzy grey hair appear.

"Are you the one who scared my granddaughter?" the old man questioned, his gaze going towards the shop's door, which was hanging half-off the hinges and leaning against the wall at an angle.

"Could be," Dean admitted. "Are you the one who cast a spell on my brother?" He took a menacing step towards the old man, who looked more offended than concerned.

"I most certainly did not cast a spell on anyone. What have you come here for?"

Dean scowled and took another step until he was pressed up against the counter, ready to leap over it if he had to. "I told you, I want to know what you did to my brother. He was fine when he came in here, and now he's got some freaky ass pentagram on his hand!"

At that, the old man's eyebrows rose and his expression morphed into surprise. "Your brother is the dark one? I cast no spell on him. I touched him with a protection charm, to keep the darkness from him. I did him a favor!"

"Like hell you did. Sounds like a spell to me!" Dean exclaimed, raising his voice an octave higher. He was starting to lose his patience; Sam was sick and in pain and he wasn't going to let it continue. "Undo it, right now."

The old man scoffed, then shook his head. "Spells are for wizards. True voodoo is a belief, not a magic."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? I don't care what you did, fix it!" Dean ordered, leaning menacingly over the counter.

"I cannot undo it, but even if I could, why would you want me to?" the man asked.

Now he looked perturbed, and Dean was starting to get angry. He considered just leaping at the guy and taking him down—old age be damned—but then decided that he needed a little more information before he broke the dude apart.

"I want you to undo it because it's making him sick." Dean explained. "And I don't have all day, so hurry it up." he added.

"You do not hear me. I told you, I cannot undo it. But it should not cause any effects, unless . . ." the old man trailed off, considering. "The darkness in him, was it there before he was possessed?"

"What? No! That demon took over my brother. It was never him!" Dean protested.

"Are you sure about that?" the old man asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure! Sam is _good_. He always has been, and he always will be. So you're going to fix this." Dean ordered. He started to make the leap over the counter, only to find himself held back by an invisible force.

The old man pointed towards each end of the counter, where there were small purple jars sitting slightly behind the front edge of the wooden surface. He gave Dean a moment to step back, then spoke. "Perhaps the demon that possessed your brother still lingers. That, or there is something else inside of him. There is no other way the pentagram would have appeared. Choose the option which you believe, but either way, if your brother is unwell it is not my doing."

xxXXxxXXxx

He dreamed about heat, but when Sam awoke he was freezing. His teeth were chattering and he couldn't stop shaking.

The comforter was tangled around his feet and Sam struggled to pull it up. When he couldn't reach he started to sit up and immediately let out a gasp as a bolt of pain shot through his stomach and up his chest. He went from cold to hot and back to cold again in the space of a second, and found himself gasping for breath.

Sam fell back to the mattress with a moan, curling in on himself until the sensations passed. God, he'd never felt anything like this before. It was like someone was stabbing him repeatedly in the stomach, and he squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to fall back into oblivion.

It wouldn't come. Instead, he felt bile sting the back of his throat and he leaned over to vomit into the wastebasket Dean had left for him.

He knew right away, without opening his eyes, that something was wrong. There was a metallic taste in his mouth, and what he was coughing up was heavy, sticky. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and cautiously cracked open watering eyes to see thick, dark blood at the bottom of the wastebasket.

"Oh, God," he moaned, panting as panic took hold.

His heart was racing and the edges of his vision faded out. Sam suddenly felt like weights had been attached to his arms and legs, and squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to stop the pull on his body.

He wasn't sure how long he blacked out for, but when he opened his eyes again everything was fuzzy and disjointed, and his mouth tasted like copper. He rolled his head painfully to the right to look at the clock on the nightstand, but the numbers were blurry and he couldn't remember when Dean had left. Instead, he tried to remember where his brother was, but that memory didn't come easily, either.

Trembling violently, Sam fumbled to get his legs untangled, kicking his feet in a desperate attempt to get free. His phone was sitting on the kitchen table, and if he could just get to it . . .

The blankets were constricting, but he managed to free himself and stumbled out of bed. He was halfway to the table when the door swung open and Dean came barreling into the room. He stopped short upon seeing Sam out of bed, and they both stared at each other for a second before Sam swayed unsteadily.

Dean jumped forward to grab his brother and started to steer him back towards the bed. "Jesus, Sammy, what are you doing out of bed?" he asked, pushing him onto his bed.

As soon as he was seated, Sam leaned forward with a groan. He was limp and shaking, and it was fairly easy for Dean to get him to lie back. Once he had him there, though, Dean didn't feel relieved. He could feel heat radiating off his brother, and Sam was squirming around in obvious discomfort.

Dean let him go and Sam curled up in a ball on his side, his face tight with pain. "Sammy, hey, hey, look at me. What's the matter?" Dean asked, kneeling beside the bed.

Sam was struggling and slightly incoherent, mumbling about not knowing what time it was or how long he'd been gone. His brother hadn't been this sick when he left two hours earlier, and now Dean was alarmed.

He leaned forward to examine the pentagram on Sam's right hand and his left knee banged into the wastebasket that he'd left behind. It rocked precariously on the old carpet and then tipped over, spilling the contents out.

Dean stared in horror at the dark red liquid that was seeping into the carpet.

"Sam. Sammy, what happened? Did you cut yourself?" Dean asked, letting go of Sam's hand and frantically starting to check his brother over. There was a smear of blood on his left palm, but no cut, and Dean couldn't see any other obvious injuries. "Sam!"

"N-no. Got sick." Sam finally whimpered. "D-dean, there's s-something w-wrong. It hurts."

"Oh, God . . ." Dean murmured under his breath, his own stomach twisting at the realization that his brother had vomited blood. _Blood. _

Dean swallowed hard and reached out to brush Sam's damp hair away from his face. "It's okay, Sammy. I'm gonna fix this."

xxXXxxXXxx

He was floating.

His stomach didn't hurt anymore and Sam finally felt relaxed, like some sort of invisible string had been cut and he was lifting off. Except he was facing the wrong direction, or he thought he was. He was pretty sure he was upside down, so he opened his eyes and was surprised to find that he was in the dark.

It was quiet, but not peaceful. There was something not right, and he flung out his arms, struggling to figure out what was going on. His fingertips brushed up against something cold and hard, and he frowned.

He tried to stretch again and felt something grip his wrist, then a flood of scalding cold shot through his veins. A second later a flash of light ripped through the darkness, filling his vision, and an image popped up in his head. A memory.

He could see himself, sitting on the edge of a motel bed holding a hot curling iron over the skin of his inner forearm and talking to himself. _I'll curl your hair after I'm done, Sam. Don't worry, this is only going to hurt like a bitch._

The flash of light came again, and he saw some guy in a gas station, his hands held over his head.

_Don't shoot me, man. Please. Just take the money. Take whatever you want._

Another flash, and there was a middle-aged man in a home office, struggling against him.

_What do you want from me?! _What_ are you?! No! No! You son of a bitch, I'm gonna—"_

Flash

_I don't think it's my blood . . . Dean, I don't remember anything._

Flash

_Sam, get off me! Sam! Get off me! Let go! No! Sam, no, please! Please!_

Flash

_You're gonna die, Dean. You and every other hunter I can find. One look at Sam's dewy, sensitive eyes, they'll let me right in the door._

Flash

_Whatever I do to you, it's nothing compared to what you do to yourself, is it? I can see it in your eyes, Dean. You're worthless. You couldn't save your Dad, and deep down, you know that you can't save your brother. _

Flash

_You will be the darkness again_.

Sam screamed and tried to kick his legs, move his arms—anything to stop the flood of memories. He felt the hard, cold thing touch his fingertips again, but he couldn't seem to move beyond it. Something was holding his wrists and ankles down. There was a noise too, a beeping sound in the background.

It was a faintly recognizable sound and he calmed down slightly, straining towards it. The beeping got louder and was joined by voices, calmer than those in his memories. He still didn't know what was going on, but he was sure he heard his brother.

"What's . . . wrong . . . him?"

" . . . react . . . drugs . . . fine . . . give him . . . different . . ."

There was a rush of warmth under his skin, replacing the harsh cold he'd felt earlier, and then there was nothing.

xxXXxxXXxx

Sunlight behind his eyelids and the smell of antiseptic woke Sam from a dreamless sleep. He opened his eyes to find himself staring at a white cardboard-paneled ceiling. The beeping of a heart monitor was loud next to his ear, and his arms and legs were strapped to the metal guardrails on his bed.

He flexed his fingers, remembering the touch of a hard, cold surface on the tips. Frowning, he turned his head and was immediately met by his brother's relieved gaze.

Dean rocked forward in his chair and reached out to grip the side of the bed with one hand. "Hey, dude. How are you feeling?"

"What happened?" Sam croaked out, coughing at the dryness in his throat. He winced and before he could blink Dean had stuck something in his mouth.

Sam jerked in shock, nearly choking, and Dean wiggled the cup he was holding. "Ice."

After his throat was taken care of, Dean leaned forward and undid the cotton straps that bound his wrists and ankles to the bed. Sam attempted to shift and hissed at the ache in his torso. He settled for flexing his fingers and toes, watching as Dean sank back in his chair with a sigh.

"Man, Sammy, you sure know how to cause a scene."

Sam frowned and shook his head. "What happened?"

"You had an ulcer that ruptured. " Dean replied, lips tensed in an expression Sam recognized as fear.

Sam raised his eyebrows in surprise. "That's . . . normal. So what . . ." Sam trailed off. He knew what he was trying to ask, but things were still fuzzy and he had to work extra hard to get his brain to make connections. Dean seemed to get what he was trying to ask, though.

"Yeah, I know. I had a bitch of a time explaining the pentagram. I think they thought I poisoned you and then gave you a bad tattoo." Dean admitted, shaking his head. "Morons."

"So what . . ." Sam repeated, trailing off and raising his right hand to glance at his palm. He was slightly surprised at how heavy his arm felt, but was relieved to see that the pentagram was gone.

"The old voodoo guy said he just wanted to give you protection, that it wouldn't hurt you. Guess he was telling the truth." Dean explained. He sniffed a little and ran his hand through his hair. "Guess I'm just so used to supernatural shit, I didn't think it could be anything else."

"Hey, s'not your fault." Sam said, relieved that the words sounded like they had some strength behind them. He shifted a bit and a little more of the fog that was wrapped around him cleared.

"No, no it is." Dean said, raising a hand when Sam started to interrupt. "I should've taken you to a doctor first. It's just, man . . . I guess after what happened with Meg I thought . . ."

Sam was instantly more alert at Meg's name and raised hurt eyes to meet his brother's. "You thought I was going evil again?"

"No, God, no. I just thought something supernatural had to be to blame, cause it sure has for every other freaky thing that's happened in the last sixth months." Dean meant it as a joke, but Sam squirmed uncomfortably and looked down at his folded hands.

Dean shoved at the edge of the mattress with his foot, prodding his brother. "Hey, you finally had a normal problem is all I'm saying." When Sam still didn't look up, Dean reached over and nudged his leg. "Hey, you got me?"

"Yeah." Sam muttered.

"Sammy, I didn't think you were evil. I thought you'd been cursed. _Huge_ difference."

Sam scowled and leaned his head back against the pillows, closing his eyes. "Yeah, that makes me feel better . . . If I hadn't been evil the guy would never have cast a protection spell on me. It started because I was evil, Dean." Sam opened his eyes and looked at his brother. "It's never gonna end, is it?"

Dean shook his head. "Not if you don't let it, you big girl. You _were_ evil, Sam. You aren't now. You've never been evil, you never will be. I've explained this to you."

A year ago the words would've brought Sam comfort, but twelve months had been a lifetime and nothing was the same. Nothing would ever be the same. For the first time in their lives, Dean's promises were nothing but empty hopes in a world that was taking too much from them.

"You can't promise me those things anymore, Dean."

Dean looked offended. "Uh, yeah, I can. Listen to me, Sammy., you can't go around thinking the worst all the time. What Dad said was a contingency plan. It wasn't a prophecy. Even dad didn't know how to tell the future."

Sam was silent for a moment, then shook his head. "Dean, I _am_ connected to the Demon and other psychic kids_ are_ bad. The possession was a fluke, yeah, but we can't ignore what's happened. _I _can't ignore it."

"Sammy –" Dean started, only to be cut off as Sam kept talking.

"You can't fix everything and you can't make me believe you can anymore, either. We've gone too far for that. Too much has happened."

Dean sat back in his chair, lips pursed in an expression that meant he was thinking. "That may be, but I can fight for you. When I say I'm going to save you, I mean it. It's not a belief, Sammy, it's a fact. I'll die before I ever let anything happen to you."

Sam wiped his hand across his eyes and shook his head. "I don't want you to die for me. I can't lose you, Dean."

"You won't." Dean promised.

"Two months ago I shot you, Dean! I almost killed you!" Sam said, tears burning the corners of his eyes. A few blinks and they spilled over his lashes and down his cheeks. Dean looked horrified and leaned back in his chair as far as he could.

"Dude, you didn't! I wasn't even close to death! A little maimed, maybe, but—"

"It's not a joke!" Sam cried, fisting the blankets in his hands. The exertion hurt, pulling something in his stomach, but he didn't back down.

Dean sighed and managed to look worried and annoyed at the same time. "No, man, you're right. But . . . listen, you had to be evil when you were possessed. You didn't have a choice. I wasn't gonna put you down for something that wasn't your choice. But you, here, now –you have a choice. And you've chosen to be good. I've known you your whole life. You'll always choose to be good."

"Things always change." Sam protested. "If I ever—"

"Sam. You won't."

"But—"

"No. You won't. I won't let you."

Sam shook his head and a stray tear slipped down his cheek. "You can't promise that. We don't know what I'm capable of. _I _don't know anymore."

At that, Dean rocked back in his chair and stared at his brother. "I do. You're not gonna hurt me. I won't let you."

"You won't kill me. Dad told you to kill me."

"I don't care what Dad said. He wasn't always right, and he didn't . . ."

Dean trailed off, looking surprised by whatever he had been going to say, and Sam filled in the words in his head. _Didn't know you like I do, didn't love you like I do_, _didn't_ _plan on saving you like I do_.

"Dean . . ."

"No, Sam. I'll save you. If I have to move the earth to do it, I'll save you."

Sam stared at his brother, and Dean stared back. They stayed that way for a moment before Dean's eyes started to narrow, and Sam allowed himself a small smile and shook his head. It still didn't make things okay, but he was exhausted and he could at least bring Dean some peace, even if he couldn't take some for himself.

"Dude, only the earth? What about Heaven?" Sam asked. "I want Heaven _and_ earth moved."

Dean huffed. "I don't believe in Heaven. I'll work with what we've got going on here, thanks."


End file.
